


Handmaiden

by Tequila_Mockingbird



Category: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Warning for Dondo dy Jironal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 05:15:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17053832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tequila_Mockingbird/pseuds/Tequila_Mockingbird
Summary: First through the stone arches, with a self-supplied fanfare of unladylike but triumphant whoops, rode a pair of young women on blowing horses belly-splashed with mud.





	Handmaiden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sildominarin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sildominarin/gifts).



Betriz is almost fourteen years old when they move to Valenda. Betriz is almost fourteen years old and her mother and her sister and little baby Arturo have been dead for more than a month, taken by the plague that spared Betriz through the grace of the Daughter. Papa takes her to light candles at the altar of the Lady of Spring and then to the Provincara of Boacia’s house, where they are going to live now.

He tells her that there is a little girl there who has just lost her father and who never had a sister, only a little brother who isn’t that much older than Arturo, and her mama is sick just like Betriz’s mother was, and that Betriz will be like her sister and take care of her and help her, just like she used to help Rosella.

When Betriz meets her, Iselle is shorter than she thought she was going to be, and she curtsies just like all the fancy ladies who stopped on their way to the Zangre, and Betriz doesn’t know how to do that kind of curtsey so she does the only one she knows. And then she is introduced to the Provincara, who is not at all like Betriz’s grandmother, and shown up to Iselle’s room, where she is going to sleep now.

They take off their dresses and wash their faces and say their prayers and get into bed, and Betriz lies there in the dark, and she is maybe crying but only a little bit, because she is almost fourteen years old and a lady and too old for crying.

And Iselle reaches over and holds her hand, there in the dark, and whispers, “I am sorry about your mama, but I am glad you have come here, Betriz. I would like you to be my friend forever and ever.”

And that is how they fall asleep.

It is a nice big room, the one where they sleep, on the top floor of the keep. There are windows with real glass in them, which Betriz is very impressed by, and there are two straw tick mattresses on the bed, which is tall enough that Iselle still needs to use a set of steps to climb into it. The rest of the keep is large too, and they can explore it at their leisure, everything and everywhere except for the rooms where Iselle’s mama sleeps, where they must never go.

Iselle is interesting—she is much shorter than Betriz, both because she is only ten years old, and because she is just shorter, Betriz suspects. Her hair is much curlier than Betriz’s, and she is much sulkier about having it brushed when she comes out of a bath. She is also fond of riding, and she can tell even better lies than Betriz can because she is a royesse and people don’t like to ask her to promise she’s telling the truth.

* * *

 

When Betriz is fifteen, Iselle and Betriz tell the riding master that they are definitely old enough for proper horses instead of ponies. They have been telling him this for almost a full year, but now he listens, and suddenly they are more than a foot farther off the ground and they can _gallop._

“Race you to the river!”

“Race you to the ford!”

“Race you to the village!”

“Race you to the temple!”

The riding master says, albeit reluctantly, that they both sit to a horse well, and they know what all they can do and what they can’t. So as long, he says, as they’re not abusing the poor creatures asking them to do more than is reasonable, they can go where they like and as quickly as they like, too.

The Provincara says that they must bring one of the waiting gentlewomen with them, as well as a groom, because they are young ladies and not wild hellions or couriers.

Betriz’s father says they must not wear out good horseflesh racing about in such a helter-skelter fashion, and bring Teidez along with them from time to time, even if it means they need to slow down for his pony and his manservant.

Not too long after the horses comes the first governess. A governess, the Provincara explains sternly, means that they are too old for a nanny, and also too old for childish nonsense. A governess, like a horse instead of a pony, means they are ladies now.

Betriz thinks that she has been a lady for two years now, but Iselle is only just turned twelve, so she doesn’t say anything.

The governess is a tall, thin woman called Mistress Maira, who stands stiffly in the middle of the room and says everything sharply.

“Ladies!” she says, and “Multiply!” and “Describe!” She doesn’t smile, not even over supper, just sits tall and thin and disapproving.

“If this is what it means to be a lady, I could not be a lady,” Iselle offers quietly, late at night.

“But then they’d make you go back to the ponies.”

Iselle sighs. “I suppose, for the sake of a horse, I can listen to Mistress Maira.”

They learn their sums, and the geography of the kingdoms surrounding Chalion and of Chalion itself—what each province produces and consumes, famous landmarks and significant fortifications. They practice etiquette of the court, order of precedence and formal curtsies to a monarch, and learn to dance the Darthacan dances that are in style in the capital city. They practice playing the lap harp and the lute, even though Betriz has no ear for music whatsoever.

Their mornings are gone, but they still have the afternoons, and they still have a pair of proper horses. Mistress Maira does not like to ride, and so the Provincara tells them they must still take a groom along and one of their ladies, at least.

* * *

 

Their conversations at night are about any number of things. About Mistress Maira or the Mother’s Day Festival or anything at all.

About wildlife, sometimes.

“Do you think,” muses Iselle quietly, “that we might fill up Teidez’s bed with frogs?”

“Well, it is hard to say fill it up… that would be a great number of frogs, and they might well start to hop _out_ of the bed. But I think perhaps… three frogs, would be manageable? Certainly two.” Betriz nodded solemnly. “Two is just one for each of us, I am sure we could contrive that.”

Sometimes they talk about the architecture of the keep.

“Do you think it would be terribly hard to sneak into the kitchens when no one was looking?”

“Hmmm, no one at all? I think the scullery maids are always there, even when Cook is out. So you might be able to sneak in when it was very busy, and no one was paying attention, or you might in the night, when the scullery girls were sleeping… but perhaps one of them stays up to tend the fire? I’m not sure.”

“We could find out.” Iselle’s voice was carefully, deliberately nonchalant.

Betriz grinned. “We could, that is true.”

They are not there to hear it, but apparently Lady dy Hueltar told Lady dy Guarrida that Mistress Maira called Iselle “a young she-demon” and Betriz “that horrible hawk of a girl” and said that she could not bear to live in the same castle as them “for one more evening” and that she was traveling to Taryoon to the Provincar’s household, where she would find another situation.

The next governess is Mistress Catrin, and she shorter and older and not quite so disapproving, but terribly serious and glum. She doesn’t smile, not even for roast goose with berry jam or for trifle. She tells them about Ibra, where she is from, but even then she doesn’t smile, and she sounds as if she were reciting funeral prayers.

She is the one who adds Darthacan to their lessons.

“No, no, royesse, it is not that way, you must sing the words up and down, like so. Darthacan is not so flat a language as the one that is spoken here in Chalion.”

Mistress Catrin is from the South Ibran border, and reminds them of that every day. She says, ‘back at home’ and ‘when I was home’ and ‘if we were in my home’ again and again. Betriz and Iselle do not say it in front of her, but when they are not at their lessons they say it too.

“Betriz, back at home they cook their eggs without salt, only with thistle jam.”

“Ah yes, Iselle, if we were in my home we would all dance the jig to and from the supper table instead of walking.”

Mistress Catrin doesn’t last long. The third governess, Mistress Guala, is of a sour disposition, but she does speak enough Darthacan to continue their lessons. She compliments Iselle on her accent, but tells her that her sums are a disgrace.

And sometimes their conversations are not about architecture or wildlife.

“Betriz, I must ask a serious question.”

“All right.” She reaches out and finds Iselle’s hand, tangles their fingers together under the thick woolen blanket.

“Am I at all beautiful? Because people say—but I know that they cannot tell a royesse that she is odd-looking, and—”

Betriz smiles. Sometimes, Iselle is shrewder than she is, and wants to take the lead, and Betriz happily lets her. And sometimes, she is reminded that her lady is only just fifteen years old. “You are not the kind of beauty that stops men in the streets, but you are very pretty—your skin is good, and your hair is lovely, you have elegant hands and a good figure. Whoever marries you will do it because you are the royesse of Chalion, but he will do it gladly and he will be the envy of his friends. There? Does that suffice?”

Iselle squeezes her hand. “Thank you, Betriz.”

* * *

 

Rodrigo, the boy who keeps the goats in the village below the keep, hits his growth that summer, and shoots up until he is taller even than Betriz. His hair was always golden and his smile charming, but now when he takes his shirt off in the field below the castle the serving maids linger at the garden and giggle behind their hands.

Betriz and Iselle are ladies, and therefore of course they do not stand outside the walls with aprons half-full of mushrooms or sorrel and giggle.

They can giggle from their school room that overlooks the fields where the goats go to graze.

Betriz does not ever manage to do more than giggle at Rodrigo, but she kisses Antoni, one of the under-grooms. He is not quite so handsome, but he kisses well, and Betriz dutifully tells Iselle all about it that evening.

“It was not… I think _wet_ would be unkind, but I am not sure I would say dry either. And he did not use too much pressure, or grab at me. He was very nice.”

Iselle sighs. They both know that her first kiss would need to wait. A royesse’s reputation was the only coin that she had.

* * *

 

Every year a merchant caravan travels through Valenda from Brajar, on the way to the capital city. And every year, the Provincara invites the head merchant to dinner and comes away from it with a very good price on several lengths of the finest Brajaran fabrics.

Then Iselle is measured for her new gowns. Iselle’s gowns are carefully patterned after whatever is being worn in the capital, from news and patterns and embroidery samples that are carried by the caravans headed in the other directions. Even when Iselle lives in Valenda, she must be a royesse of Chalion, and that means that her gowns must be ready to uphold the dignity of Chalion at any time. And whatever else might be lacking sartorially in the quiet backwater of Boacia, it is not skillful seamstresses. Betriz would wager that the handwork on their dresses is at least the equal of that on any lady’s in Chalion, Ibra, or Brajar.

Iselle’s mother gets new gowns, they must suppose, but Betriz and Iselle mostly know this because of how much fabric is bought. The provincara buys a length of rich golden linen, and she does not wear it, and neither do either of them, so it must go to the Lady Ista.

Betriz gets new gowns, too, but hers come out of a patchwork of purses—some as her father’s daughter, from his private monies, some as Iselle’s handmaiden, out of the money that is allotted to her household by the roya and the provincara, and some from the provincara’s own purse, as a gift to a dependent living under her care. As a result, they are fewer and simpler than Iselle’s, sometimes fabric from an older gown that has been returned. She cannot wear Iselle’s cast-offs, since the hems would need to be let down a good four or five inches, so she suspects they must be the Lady Ista’s, but cannot be sure.

* * *

 

With the end of summer comes a courtier from the capital, heading home to his father’s lands and delivering some messages to the Provincara from friends in the capital city. He is tall, and dresses in the richest clothes they have ever seen—velvets and satins every single day, and every piece trimmed with lace or braid. He wears scent in his hair, but does not seem to wash it, as the scent floats over the smell of oil gone rotten and rancid, and his nails are overlong and pinch when he bows over their hands.

He stays for almost a week, dining at the Provincara’s honored right hand every night, and each evening sitting next to him Iselle’s face grows more and more wooden. Betriz can see it clearly from where she sits on the other side of the board, next to Teidez, and she wishes that there were something she could do. It is her duty to protect Iselle, but not from smelly, rude men who make insinuating remarks and pat her hands whenever she reaches for her wine. Not so long as they are important couriers and the second son of a powerful Castillar. She can only shield Iselle from unpleasant grooms and encroaching merchants’ sons, not from equally vile noblemen.

“I hope,” Iselle says into the darkness that night, “that whoever I am married to does not smell as much like rancid bacon-fat.”

“I hope so too.”

“What about your husband? Will he be just as handsome as Rodrigo the goat boy?”

Betriz laughs. “I do not care if he is handsome, I want someone clever. Clever and not a lout, someone who does not drink to excess or start fights in the courtyards.”

“Is that all? He can be old and ugly as long as he is very wise?”

“Most handsome men are all too aware that they are handsome—clever and kind will do for me. And perhaps a poet.” She giggled into the darkness. “Young and handsome husbands only, for you?”

“Oh, of course.” Iselle turned over, rustling the sheets. “He will be very young and handsome and desperately in love with me, and he will also be very bored with ruling his kingdom so he shall ask me to do it for him.” Her giggle trailed off, a little sadly. They both knew that she would be married to whomever Orico or, if she was lucky, Teidez thought wise, bartered away to seal a treaty or stop a war.

“Iselle, if you could ask the Lady for one gift in a husband, what would it be?”

“Someone who didn’t want me to be a doll or a statue. And a marriage that would bring a functional seaport to Chalion.”

Betriz threw out a hand, whacking her gently on the arm. “I said _one_ thing.”

“The Lady is generous!”

It becomes a common game with them, as they are being laced into dresses or saddling horses, to talk about Iselle’s future husband.

“Perhaps he will be Darthacan.”

“Perhaps. Or Brajaran.”

“Or one of the horse-lords of the Little Kingdoms.”

“Perhaps he will have a great bushy beard.”

“Perhaps he will have great bushy eyebrows.”

“Eugh!”

They both fell to giggling.

* * *

 

Not long after Mistress Guala leaves, the Castillar dy Cazaril arrives. Betriz is not sure what to make of dy Cazaril, when she first meets him. He is thin and pale, with a patchy, intermittently gray beard and unsteady hands—you might mistake him for an overzealous priest or a mad alchemist. But his eyes are clever, and careful, and watchful, and Betriz likes the look of his eyes.

It seems that the Provincara summoned him to Valenda to be Iselle’s secretary-tutor, now that she was fifteen years old and beginning to gather a full household.

He is not bad, as a tutor; he is sharp, sometimes, and does not let Iselle’s mind wander. But he has much better stories than Mistress Guala, and he can be coaxed into describing the places he’s seen.

When he talks about them, Betriz thinks that she can see the wide harbors of Ibra, and the mountainous border between Chalion and Darthaca, and even the high cliffs of Roknar. He weaves an image with his words for two girls who have only ever traveled from one province of Chalion to another one. That is a gift in a tutor, indeed.

He seems to actually listen when they talk, which is more than could be said for Mistress Maira or Guala. And even though he is clearly trying to be stern, she can see merriment in his eyes, from time to time. Especially when he offers to teach them to swear in Roknari.

* * *

 

“Papa?”

“Yes, Betriz?” Her father is hard at work, poring over the heaps of bound volumes that are the accounts for the castle. There are four separate households here under one roof, and he must keep straight what monies come in and go out for each. Teidez and Iselle and the Lady Ista all have purses for their support coming from the roya, and monies that come from rents on land and castles that belong to them in various parts of Chalion, and some things that are bought by the household are bought by them or in their name using those monies, entirely separate from what the Provincara receives from her son and owns in her own right, and spends on her own upkeep and that of her daughter and grandchildren.

In some ways they are very thrifty—the same set of guardsmen can be paid one quarter each from each set of accounts, and thereby come very cheap for well-trained and loyal men. Their board is much the same; if necessary, the Provincara’s account can run heavy, and the rest of them seem to spend little or nothing on foods and wines, but that can shift from month to month depending on what is needed.

But in other ways it is a mess to untangle—which of the money spent on Iselle’s new gowns was a gift from her grandmother, and out of that money? Which was part of her mother’s allotment for clothing for a daughter not yet at her majority? Which came as part of Iselle’s household-in-right, spending money for her own upkeep?

It seems foolish to quibble, but money that comes from the roya for maintenance of a dowager royina, royse and royesse, is money that must be accounted for to the roya’s clerks and scribes and, ultimately, the Lord of the Exchequer.  And her father is the man who must keep all of that money in order.

“I am sorry to bother you, papa, but I wanted to ask a question.”

“No, no, it is quite all right. I was almost done for the day.”

“It is just… I sense that Iselle is worried, but she will not say it directly. I think she is concerned… papa, do we know if what afflicts the Royina is the sort of affliction that… is passed down in families?”

Her father stops and puts down his pen.

“I am sorry, and I know I should not pry—I would not ask, except that I can tell it is bothering Iselle, and she doesn’t like to seen to worry, or to inquire, but—I am sorry.”

“No, do not apologize, Betriz. You are nearly nineteen years old now, and Iselle is almost fifteen. You are women, and we cannot treat you as children for much longer.”

She sits down, and he tells her quite seriously of dy Lutez, and Ias’s death not long after, and how it had overwhelmed his beautiful young bride. He tells her that madness does not run in Ista’s family--indeed, one look at the Provincara would seem to argue that--and she has been not truly _mad,_ but sorrowful and distracted and often wandering in her wits. That Iselle should not fear.

That night, when Betriz goes to bed, she waits in the dark for some time, as they both listen to the sounds of the servants moving from room to room, and the watchmen on the walls calling all’s well.

Betriz reaches out and takes Iselle’s hand, and squeezes it tightly. “My father says,” she begins, her voice hardly louder than the wind, “that the Lady Ista is not insensible, merely overtaken with grief. That there is no madness in her family line, and no reason to suspect that her children would be afflicted.”

Iselle says nothing, but clings to Betriz’s hand until Betriz can tell that she has fallen asleep.

* * *

 

The good Nan dy Vrit is, they are aware, something of a compromise by the Provincara, who is a woman who did not often compromise. The Castillar will do for a secretary-tutor, but not for a waiting gentlewoman. Nan is old enough to entreat them to slow down on their rides, but young enough that she can, after all, stay in the saddle after them. She is a scold, and chides them sorely on all the points of etiquette and decorum that they miss, but she is a kindly one, and not utterly without a sense of humor. The Provincara clearly did not want another Maira, Catrin, or Guala, but she did want some kind of leash on her headstrong granddaughter, since it was now all too clear that while Betriz would be a guide and a friend, she would not a leash or a spy.

She was fairly sure, at least, that Nan dy Vrit was not a spy. She did not have the slyness for it. And so they tried to remember that they were ladies, now, and not young hoydens running loose around a keep. Besides, the Castillar dy Cazaril kept them busy at lessons, and riding, and swimming.

They enjoy the swimming.

* * *

 

Betriz was not blind, and she was no child. She knew when a man thought that she was beautiful, and she knew when he was going to be crude about it, and Cazaril was the former without the latter.

She found she did not mind. He was clever, and kind, and had a kind of spare dignity about him that she would be sorry to strip from him with embarrassment. And what harm did it do for him to think that she was pleasant to look on? She was no real beauty, she knew that, but she had skin without pox scars and a fine enough figure, and that was enough for most men. He himself, though thinner than he should be, had a full mouth that smiled easily, and lovely eyes, and hands that told tales of past bravery. And what harm did it do for her to think him pleasant to look on, in turn?

What she thought was pleasant to look on, in the end, was not going to matter one jot.

Betriz knew, and she knew that Iselle knew, that their futures were already set. The man was as yet unknown, but there would be a man, and he would be chosen for a long list of criteria--chosen carefully, and with intention. Their marriages would win alliances or trade concessions, tighten bonds or encourage allies, gain land or riches or consolidate power. This was what it meant to be a royesse of Chalion, to be sure, but also simply to be a noblewoman without significant dowry and the handmaiden of a royesse. This was the bargain that the Gods offered every maiden, and this was why they prayed to the Daughter that she would hold them gently in her hands, and send them happiness in their husbands.

You could hope for a kind man, and a good one, you could pray for one who loved you, or one whom you loved. But hope and prayer were not all that you could do--not all that you must do.

You also had to be as clever as you could, and as careful. You had to know who it was that had the disposal of your marriage in their hands, and whether they could be reasoned with, or pleaded with, or manipulated, or bribed.

Betriz was lucky, she knew, to have a loving father and a sound, if meagre, jointure. He would not force her to marry a cruel man, even if he might urge her to make a sensible rather than romantic choice, it would not be necessary for her to marry where her heart felt loathing, even if she could not, in all likelihood, marry what her eyes found pleasing to rest on.

Iselle was a royesse, and with a royesse's privilege came a royesse's burden: her marriage would be in the hands of her roya-and-brother, and it would be a marriage for Chalion's good rather than her own happiness.

* * *

 

They receive word that they will be travelling to Cardegoss, and Iselle is wild with joy.

It is treasonous to say it out loud, during the daytime. It is treasonous to even suspect that the royina Sara will not fall with child and bear a healthy son. But at night, in the darkness of their room, Iselle can whisper. “Teidez is going to be the roya of Chalion, someday, isn’t he?”

And Betriz can whisper back, “Yes.”

It is one thing, to marry off the much younger half-sister of the roya when there is a new heir, and another to marry off his only sister. The husbands who are offered will be different, the expectations of her consequence and her bearing and her ability to navigate diplomatic waters, will all be different.

Betriz has never been to the capital before. She is not some cunning court lady, experienced in intrigue and wise to plots and social traps. She is a country girl who can sit a horse and sew and straight seam, with a head for figures and a loyal heart.

That will have to be enough.

Betriz loved Iselle as a sister, as she remembered loving little Rosella before the fever took her, and as she loved her royesse and her Lady. She had not considered Iselle’s looks as a man might do, but after Iselle had asked her the question, and hearing that they would be going to the capital city, she began to ponder it.

Iselle was certainly not going to find any man turning down her hand because of her features, but for the most part, those who wished to marry her would have taken her despite a face as hideous as a Roknari warlord. She was young, which they would like, and her mother had given birth to two children in three years, with no miscarriages and further offspring cut short only by her husband’s death--that would bode well for Iselle’s own ability to bear children in good health.

It was Betriz who had to rise and fall on the merits of her face and her charm.

And her proximity to Iselle.

* * *

 

The journey to Cardegoss had not seemed overly arduous--but she and Iselle were regularly ahorse, and regularly riding several miles at the canter. The same obviously could be said for Teidez and his grooms, but the general baggage was not fine, sleek riding horses, it was pack mules and sturdy donkeys, and they traveled slowly. Still, it was wearing to sleep in strange beds and wake early to ride all day, and by the time they arrived at the capital city they were all cross and muddy and smelled of horse.

It was an impressive sight, even if she had not been feeling like a pigkeeper and eager for a cool drink. The stone was paler than the warm gold of Valenda, and what it brought to mind, somehow, was bleached bone. Or teeth. Cazaril reminded them that the Zangre had never been taken by assault, and Betriz did not wonder why. It looked as if it would fight back.

The town itself was an assault on the senses, packed with people and noise. They road down large, central streets but whenever she glanced to the left or right she could see the sidestreets twisting into a maze of alleyways, far too narrow for their cavalcade on horseback. She wanted to leap off of her horse and go exploring in the markets and high-sided streets. She wanted to get to the Zangre and fall down and sleep for at least three days. She wanted to get to the Zangre and be presented to the Roya and Royina and dance all night long. She wanted to turn around and ride with Iselle all the way back to Valenda. She wanted to eat an entire feast by herself.

She set her horse behind Iselle’s and followed her royesse up the streets of the city.

* * *

 

Betriz reached into the saddlebag and took out the dress for her court presentation, carefully wrapped in oilcloath to keep it pristine on the journey. It was in deep, night blue and turquoise--rich colors, to be sure, expensively dyed, but not her usual palette and of finer cloth than she could always offer. This dress had not been part of the usual go-around for Betriz’s gowns. This was purely and completely an expense of Iselle’s household, because her role in this gown was to be purely and completely Iselle’s handmaiden, and visibly so. She knew that Caz would also be decked out as an ornament, and was privately pleased to match him behind Iselle, two bookends on the royesse’s consequence.

Iselle tried not to show it, but her hands were trembling as they were laced into the gowns. Betriz reached over and took them in hers, pressing gentle kisses to the back of each. “Royesse. Iselle. I know. But it will be all for the best, by the Daughter’s hand.”

Iselle nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

“And I will be there, and Teidez, and Nan, and Caz. We will all be there with you.”

Nan dy Vrit bustled back with the beautifully worked jewelry box that had travelled so carefully, wrapped in silk and then wool and then nestled in a saddlebag.

“Now, m’lady, I should not try to be _lavish_ , as there will be more than enough of that on show. Dignified, elegant restraint, as becomes a young lady still not seventeen. That hair is your noble father’s, and bless his memory it’s all the gold you need about you to show why you’re here in Cardegoss.” She reached into the box and took out a beautiful enamel belt that had been a gift from the Provincara. “This will do nicely--and your best brooch and ear-bobs. But only two or three rings.”

Iselle nodded. “I will be guided by you, Nan. But then Betriz must have some of what I cannot wear--we shall hold ranks.” She took out her only pair of diamond earrings and Nan put them into her ears.

“No, Iselle--I couldn’t!”

“It is silly for them to sit here unused in my jewelry box!” She fished out the best two of her rings and slipped them on, then slid the box toward Betriz. “Go on!”

Betriz took out a silver ring set with lapis lazuli and put it on her finger, and a silver brooch set with onyx, which she pinned to her shoulder. “There.”

“One more.”

“Iselle, this is really unnecessary.”

“Are you my handmaiden, or not, Lady Betriz dy Ferrej?”

Betriz’s lips tightened. She reached out and picked up another ring with several tiny beryls set along its length and put it onto another finger. “As my lady commands.”

“Ah, Betriz, stop. Please. I just wish us to be able to hold our heads up in the throne room. We may be girls from the country, but we are not nobodies, and we will not be overawed. I need your strength by my side in this.”

Betriz found the sapphire brooch that had been a gift from Roya Ias to the Royina Ista the year that Iselle was born, and fastened it carefully at the top of Iselle’s bust. “I am always by your side, Iselle. Always. And all the strength I have is yours.”

* * *

 

It was hard to say, whether the Roya’s Court in Cardegoss was all that she had imagined. She had tried not to picture it too closely, sure that she could have no conception of what it would be, and equally afraid to be disappointed or completely overawed. But it was certainly… different. Luxurious. Overwhelming. Nothing was allowed to be quiet when it could be loud, or still when it could be moving. Anything that could have had one color had four, most of them bright and some gilded. Any food that could have had one flavor had five, expensive spices competing in the mouth such that you could hardly taste any of them. There was such concentrated, vibrant life in every moment and every object, and yet no one ever looked satisfied--always thirsty, always hungry, always bored and in search of new entertainment.

And so many of them! She had thought Valenda was a crowded keep when she first came there, and Valenda looked like a deserted shepherd’s hut in the hills compared to the Zangre, which itself was dwarfed by the city that supported and fed it.

Every day Betriz woke wishing for more sleep and stumbled into bed feeling as if she had galloped all the way back to Boacia. She and Iselle had little time for whispered nighttime conversations, for she suspected that Iselle was as exhausted as she was.

It had been delightful, at first--of course it had. Who could fail to be delighted by something so clearly designed in order to bring delight? To tantalize, to satiate, to dizzy, too, but ultimately to please.

And yet, much like good wine left out in the sun, after several weeks the Court at the Zangre began to sour. Some of it was simply that a diet of only sweetmeats and sugar soon sickened the stomach, and that was all that was offered in conversation or friendship--sugar over bitterness. Some was that the pace, invigorating at first, soon left her simply flat tired and resenting each new entertainment.

And some was how clearly she was nothing more than a pawn, here.

Oh, she had known even before arriving in Cardegoss that she would be a target of those who wanted Iselle’s ear, or Iselle’s purse, or Iselle herself, and thought that Betriz’s affections were the way to that goal. And Cazaril had helped, to be sure, by pointing out just how the flattery would go, so accurately that she could not help but become aware of it. But the more he pointed it out, the more it became clear that this was _all_ she was being offered. No one who asked her opinion of the music or a certain fashion or even the weather ever wanted to know her opinion simply because they wished to know her better--it was all in service of a prank or gossip or inquiring whether the Royesse also enjoyed Brajaran roundels.

The March dy Palliar had asked how she was enjoying herself, and offered another amusing story of Caz on campaign, in that one night he had spent at the Court before venal treachery drove him out again. And the Roya, at the center of the spokes of power that moved in the Court and therefore able, somewhat, to ignore them, would speak to them about the animals in his menagerie with sincerity and without hidden motives.

But that was all.

Iselle seemed to take it in stride; perhaps she had been more thoroughly warned before she left Valenda, or perhaps she recalled more of her childhood in Cardegoss than either of them had realized. Betriz felt further from her confidence, at times, but that was more a measure of their mutual exhaustion and lack of privacy; they were rarely, if ever, alone for the kind of frank conversation that had marked their friendship from childhood.

She had known--her father had made very clear, before he left, and Caz had repeated again and again, that the gentlemen of court might be decidedly ungentleman-like, and that she should not feel shy about repressing their intentions with vigor. And there had been, sure enough, several brash young puppies closer to Iselle’s age who had pursued her with more determination than elegance, and who had been easily depressed with a stern glance and forbidding tone of voice.

And there have been a few others who had the good Castillar dy Cazaril’s trick of making her subtly aware that they thought her quite pretty, and were happy to have the pleasure of a dance, without making her want to pinch wandering fingers or summon errant nursemaids. Some of them are even handsome and clever, to boot, and made delightful dancing partners in their own right.

And then there are a few others--men older or more powerful than she felt she could warn off with a haughty expression, men who were not cowed by the roya’s half-sister and her consequence, or whose enmity Iselle could not afford.

Men like Lord Dondo dy Jironal.

Not for him simply the slow, syrupy glance down her throat to the edge of her bodice, and below it, or the wet clasp of hands ever-so-slightly too tight during a panache. No, the lord dy Jironal… pressed. Pressed close. Held tight. Murmured things.

At first Betriz attempted to play completely deaf, a wax doll. Then she tried incomprehension, then horror, then affront. None of those, it seemed, would serve to cool his ardour.

The trouble with her tactics, she slowly realizes, was that Dondo dy Jironal had no sense of shame that she could awaken, and feared no consequences that she could bring to bear upon him. The only things he cares about seem to be money, which she cannot charge him, and power, which she cannot cost him. She is not able to remove his Generalship over the Daughter’s Order, nor his Provincardom, nor his social influence over Teidez and the other influential people of the court.

But when she points this out to Iselle, Iselle grows thoughtful. “No, we cannot take his money, or his political office. But I am not sure about influence. Dy Jironal likes his social power, too, and that… that is where he is vulnerable.”

“You think I could… reject him publicly? I have not wanted to create a scene, for I fear that would reflect poorly on my own modesty.”

“No, not that, I agree that would not answer. But perhaps… a jest, to make him the mockery of those young bucks he dances for, and in Teidez’s eyes, to boot.” Iselle is fiery, lit up with delight at whatever she is picturing.

“How a jest--do you think that I could trick him into some public foolishness in exchange for my surrender, but then withdraw the latter?”

“Hmmm. Or simply… to invite him to your bed, and not be there.”

“The bed empty? But how would that serve for a jest?”

“No, you are right… the bed empty will not serve. But the bed, occupied by someone he does not suspect? That might do well. Poor Nan dy Vrit does not deserve it, though.”

“Nor no other lady, Iselle. He might well be angry, to find himself made the butt of a joke.”

“I had not thought of that--you are right.” Iselle taps her lip and frowns. “Do you think that Ser Rodrigo dy Rinal would do it? He is a merry one, and he has played foolish parts before.”

Betriz consideres. The young lord dy Rinal is certainly lively, always looking for a dance or a caper, and although he had joined with dy Jironal in some amusements--notably, their false bandit kidnapping and subsequent ‘rescue’--she has a sense that he is equally happy to laugh with or at others.

“I think you should ask him.”

* * *

 

Lord dy Rinal had been responsible for acquiring a pig--or, more accurately, bribing a page to acquire a pig--but it is Betriz and Iselle’s role to wash it and wind it in ribbons. It is, unsurprisingly, a task that requires both of their full attention, and some heels of bread that Betriz had saved from supper. But eventually my Lady Pig is clean and decorated. As they are lifting her up to get her into the bed, Iselle’s head turns.

“Betriz.” Her voice is gleeful.

“What is it?”

“Do you think you could reach that vial of the horrid Darthacan perfume that I was given by Ser Sergio dy Lombar?”

Betriz feels a matching grin spread over her face. “Yes, I think that I can.”

She could.  

It is delightful, to watch Lord Dondo dy Jironal stumble out of the bed clutching his trews at the waist, with Lady Pig squealing all the while, and dash out of the room to the chorus of everyone’s laughter.

It is delightful to savor the look on his face while giggling with Lord dy Rinal and Iselle, and to see Teidez’s reluctant smirking.

It is even delightful to reveal their trick to Nan dy Vrit and Cazaril, summoned by the chaos.

It is not until Caz’s face went white that Betriz starts to feel uneasy.

But then there comes nothing. She trusts Cazaril’s judgement, but she can clearly see that he is… worried, about dy Jironal. And both Lord or March dy Jironal are men to be wary of, that much is sure, but Cazaril seems to feel an anxiety beyond the normal caution to feel for men of such power and even such power and such corruption. Surely they could not risk striking back against a royesse, not for such a petty slight as a prank? And all is quiet for weeks and weeks--the usual round of dances, feasts, musical entertainments, and rides--it is almost becoming routine, now, despite the fact that each brought some kind of new variation.

So she starts to relax.

* * *

 

They are at their sewing when dy Sanda bursts into the room, quite unlike his normal staid manners. “The Castillar dy Cazaril has been arrested and taken before the Roya!”

Iselle leaps to her feet, needle forgotten amongst the threads. “We must go at once!”

Betriz scrambles up, reaching for Iselle’s nicer vest-cloak. They had been sewing in simple, older dresses, not yet dressed for the evening entertainments. There is no time to braid Iselle’s hair or even to fetch some of her better jewelry, but the vest cloaks are near to hand and will cover some shabbiness.

By the time they make it into the corridor, Iselle is urgently interrogating dy Sanda, who had little enough to report. “All I have, my lady, I have from a page, and he merely said that the Castillar had been arrested and brought before the Roya in his study, and that he thought dy Jironal was there.”

“Lord Dondo dy Jironal?”

“No, his brother.”

Iselle pales, and speeds up. Betriz follows as closely as she could without tangling herself in Iselle’s skirts.

Cazaril escapes only by virtue of one of the Bastard’s crows, and Iselle leaves wine on the Bastard’s altar in thanks for the rest of the week. When dy Sanda is found dead, she leaves double the ration of wine.

She had not been unhappy to leave Valenda behind and come to Cardegoss. That had been naivete, she now knew, and innocence that she was both sorry and glad to have lost. She was a wiser woman, now, than she had been as a simply country handmaiden. She was a less happy one, too--less happy in her country, and her fellow men. But no less happy in her friends, and that was a true gift. And certainly no less happy in Iselle, who she had seen grow in wisdom and in grace while in the capital city. She only hopes that she has been able to be of use to Iselle in this strange new landscape, that she has been able to be a shield or a guide or at least a listening ear, and that Iselle has been happier in her.

Could she call herself happier in the Castillar dy Cazaril? She knows him better, she thinks, but perhaps he has also grown in the capital city--grown surer, grown braver.

She would not have bartered anyone’s life to know this.

* * *

 

When they announce the betrothal, Betriz can see Iselle going pale, and it is as if she can feel Iselle’s skin chill and heart stutter from halfway across the room. Perhaps that is just her own heart, and her own cold hands.

This is something only the roya can protect Iselle from, and he has delivered her up like a sacrifice on an altar.

That night they do not go to bed. They merely sit by the fireplace, and Nan brings them cup after cup of hot mulled wine that grows cold undrunk.

“Betriz, I cannot--is this my duty to Chalion? Am I merely being selfish?”

“No. This can be no duty--as you said, this brings no alliances, binds no treaties. This only hands over Teidez’s royacy to dy Jironal on a platter. And that is no gift to Chalion.”

Betriz chafes Iselle’s hands, still cold despite her seat at the hearth, and they stare into the fire.

“The roya might yet be pursuaded.”

“Do you think it likely?”

“No.”

“The royina…”

“If she could prevent it, I think that she would. But I do not think it will be within her power.”

“Betriz, I… I do not think I can do this. I do not think I can bear it.”

“Then do not.”

The fire flickers across Iselle’s hair, and in her eyes. Betriz thinks, somehow, that she looks older and younger, a woman grown who has weathered storms and a little girl frightened of the thunder.

The chimney smokes--it must still be raining.

“We could fly. If Cazaril could get us horses--if we made it to Boacia, we might be able to shelter with my uncle.”

“Could your uncle hold you safe against the might of the royacy?”

Iselle closes her eyes. “No.”

“Then it must be to a border. A border and a marriage, before they can catch you. There is nothing that can be done then.”

“That must be it, then.”

Neither of them speaks of the difficulty of getting horses, or the dangers of wet and muddy roads, or how dubiously safe they will be casting themselves into the power of whomever will take them, or whether Orico… or dy Jironal… would be willing to go to war over a missing royesse. They simply sit hand in hand by the fire and wait for next day.

* * *

 

The next day brings Dondo dy Jironal. He stands not a foot away from Betriz and repeats all the filth he once pressed upon Betriz, and more besides. He stands right within arms reach and his breath stinks of wine and sugar, like every poisonous thing in this court, as he spits poison all his own. As he tells them that the roya permitted him to force himself on the royina.

As he tells them his plans to force himself on Iselle.

And all that Betriz can do is cling to Iselle’s hand, hidden away in their skirts, and wait for him to leave. Wait for a miracle.

Iselle begins to pray, and Betriz is not unfaithful. She has been grateful to the Daughter for many gifts before. But she cannot sit and wait for the goddess. She cannot take the chance.

Betriz has sat by Iselle while she vomited for an entire two days after eating some black pudding that had gone rotten. She has wiped tears from her eyes when she wept. She was the first person Iselle told when her gift of the Mother had come and she needed a sponge-clout to tie under her dress, and she is the person who hears all of Iselle’s fears. She has planned jokes and raced horses and held screaming arguments with Iselle, and all that time she has known that someday she might be asked to sacrifice herself for the royesse of Chalion.

It will not be so much, she thinks, to stab a man. She has cut meat at the table for her dinner before, and between a side of beef and the skin of a man there cannot be too great a difference.

It is little enough work to charm a guardsman into handing over a dirk, after she asking him a great many breathless questions about his valor in battle and whether he has killed many Roknari for the Roya. He is calm, relaxed in his post deep within the castle. He fears mad assassins, not court ladies. He does not know that she has ambition to be both.

Now she just must learn where it is that one cut will do the most work. She will only get one chance.

She goes to Cazaril and tells him she has the answer. He disagrees.

“This is not work for a woman,” Caz tells her, but she cannot think why. It is work for those who can do it, and she is the one who is in a position to do it. Childbed is work for women, and that brings death enough. The laying out of bodies, and the dressing and cleaning of them, that is women’s work, and being wived to vile old men. Why should one clean, quick act, in the service of another’s happiness, be no work for a woman?

But he tells her that he may find a better way, and she trusts him, so she goes back into the room where Iselle has been praying all night and sits beside her. The violets that Cazaril found in Cardegoss are still blooming in their little cup of water, and she takes heart from that. The Daughter is not far from them, even here out of Her season.

But then the Gods do not answer. Iselle prays all day without stopping, and Betriz and Nan sit beside her and try to convince her to take some water, a bit of bread. She shakes her head and clasps her hands again, singing unceasingly in paens to the Daughter. The Daughter, it seems, is not listening. When Iselle does try to eat, she is sick.

Betriz hears nothing of Dondo dy Jironal’s death, and although she also hears nothing of Cazaril’s, she is sorry. And at least it is not too late for her own knife.

Late in the evening Caz comes to the door and tells her that he has one last plan in mind. She trusts him--she has trusted him, here in this nest of vipers, but she still asks. She has slept only a little more than Iselle has done, and she doesn’t…

She thinks he is a good man. She wants to say that she knows he is one. But he is still a man, and men think that if you simply say no, then the marriage is not lawful, and the problem is solved.

She asks, and he answers her and finally explains why he’s been so paranoid about the dy Jironals and kisses her.

He kisses her. She’s never kissed a man with a beard before, and it itches--it brings the whole moment, somehow, into sharper relief--the smell of his hair and skin, the warmth of him pressed up against her body, his mouth, just as soft as Antoni but with that scratch of beard around it, setting her skin hot and uncomfortable. Or perhaps that is just the kiss, and her exhaustion, and her worry.

He apologizes, then, and seems to be under the impression that she wishes to marry the March dy Palliar, and goes.

Betriz goes back inside, goes back to Iselle. And waits. She waits while the candles sink and gutter, and around midnight she finally convinces Iselle to take a little bit of watered wine and some bread. Then Betriz waits while Iselle finally drops off into a fitful doze. She sits by the bed and watches her lady sleep, brow still furrowed and twitching slightly from time to time.

It’s not quite dawn, yet, when the noise starts up in the corridors. Men’s boots, urgent, muffled voices. Betriz stands, silent and furious. They cannot give Iselle even a few hours of rest? Is this some vile Cardegoss tradition to awaken the bride with roistering, the morning before the wedding? Someone hammers at the door and Nan scurries to answer it.

“We will see the royesse!”

Nan’s words are quiet enough that Betriz cannot hear them from the inner chamber, but she hopes that she is telling whomever this is that the royesse cannot be disturbed.

“Sleeps--can you swear she sleeps and lives, woman!”

Who can doubt that Iselle lives? Is this some kind of strange fear of a Roknari plot? Is there some danger?

“Then bring her out, that I may see!”

She stands, lips tightening in fury.

She comes up behind Nan in the doorway and sees Martou dy Jironal standing before her, scowling.

“Why do you make this uncouth roaring here, my lord? It is unseemly and untimely.”

“Where is the royesse, then? I must see the royesse.”

“She is sleeping a little, for the first time in days. I’ll not have her disturbed.” Betriz is tired of guarding her words, smiling and playing sweet and empty-headed maiden, of weighing every word for whether or not it is politic. Betriz will be dead tomorrow, along with Dondo dy Jironal, and she will not need to guard her words again. She sees Cazaril behind dy Jironal, and opens her mouth to speak her mind. “She’ll have to exchange dreams for nightmare soon enough.”

“Wake her? _Can_ you wake her?”

Betriz hears Iselle behind her, and could curse Martou dy Jironal for this more than his many other crimes. She had been _sleeping_.

“I do not sleep. What do you want, my lord?”

But it seemed that, after all this fuss, dy Jironal did not wish to see Iselle after all, because he turned and snarled something about a body before leaving with the rest of the crowd.

When they were alone, Iselle turns to Cazaril and asks him what has happened.

“Someone killed Dondo dy Jironal last night. By death magic.”

But Cazaril is not dead. Betriz realizes, in that moment, that she had somehow expected his plan would succeed, but that it would be his death, too. That it would be the Bastard’s death magic. And it was, but yet it was not. Cazaril is not dead, and she is not dead, and Iselle is safe from Dondo dy Jironal.

* * *

 

Betriz decides that tomorrow, she will go out and get another knife.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! Hope everyone enjoys the season :)


End file.
